{"id":3008,"date":"2016-10-12T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T04:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3008"},"modified":"2016-10-11T17:42:56","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T21:42:56","slug":"forty-two-02","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3008","title":{"rendered":"Forty-two – 02"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Neve’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Neve felt like someone had just poured ice into her veins. She clutched baby Kurt a little tighter\u2014perhaps too tightly, because he began to fuss and she immediately loosened her grip. Her heart began to pound harder, almost too hard even as her chest grew tight with a special breed of panic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s here, Cariocecus?\u201d she asked in a bare whisper, hoping he\u2019d hear. Somehow she couldn\u2019t bring herself to raise her voice any higher, as if by whispering she could stop whatever was coming from happening\u2014stop whatever was already here <\/em>from getting any worse.<\/p>\n

His gaze drifted toward her, his focus sharpening as he seemed to realize who she was, what she\u2019d asked. He shifted slightly on the stretcher, then hissed, one hand flopping toward the spot where his wound\u2014now mostly healed\u2014had been but falling short of the mark. For the briefest moment, Neve wondered whether or not he had been poisoned\u2014poisoned like Cameron or her brother by whatever had attacked him.<\/p>\n

By whoever<\/em> had attacked him.<\/p>\n

Jacqueline might know, but now sure as hell wasn\u2019t the time to ask.<\/p>\n

Cariocecus took a deep, rasping breath before he spoke.<\/p>\n

\u201cOlympium,\u201d he whispered, his eyes gleaming with neither fever nor madness\u2014gleaming with something indescribable but also undeniably present. It was enough to send another shiver shooting through Neve as she stared down at him, a thing almost as terrifying as what he was telling them.<\/p>\n

Olympium.<\/em><\/p>\n

Once upon a time, the exiles from Olympium had been the most powerful of them all with influence that had waxed and waned for centuries before the end of their rule\u2014forced out, like so many, by the changing times and the growing power of other powers, powers that were not of an Otherworld but at the same time somehow were<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOlympium\u2019s come,\u201d he repeated. \u201cThey\u2019ve brought her <\/em>with them. She won\u2019t stop. She won\u2019t stop.\u201d He closed his eyes, exhaling noisily. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t know what she wants. She\u2019ll be an easy puppet for them, a weapon in their hands. Like he was.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike he was.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Neve’s point of view.] Neve felt like someone had just poured ice into her veins. She clutched baby Kurt a little tighter\u2014perhaps too tightly, because he began to fuss and she immediately loosened her grip. Her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,224,14],"tags":[150,226,171,170,174,227,151,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-5","category-chapter-42","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-cariocecus","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-jacqueline-bell","tag-kurt-johanson","tag-neve-vaughan","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-Mw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3009,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions\/3009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}